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Sergei Parajanov
Bio/Filmography
Ron Holloway, Berlin, 15 January 1994
Born Sarkis Yossifovich
Paradjanian of Armenian parents on 9 January 1924 in Tbilisi, Georgia,
Sergei Parajanov transferred from the Tbilisi Institute for Railway
Engineering (1942) to the Tbilisi Conservatory of Music (1943-45) to
study song and violin before gaining admission in 1946 to VGIK, the
Soviet All-Union State School for Film Art and Cinematography (aka
Moscow Film School). He graduated as a film director in 1951 under the
tutelage of Ukrainian masters Igor Savchenko and Alexander Dovzhenko and
found employment at the Kiev Film Studios (later renamed the Alexander
Dovzhenko Studios).
Parajanov began
his career by making the same film twice. Shortly after completing his
diploma film, A Moldavian Fairy Tale (1951), shot in the Ukraine, he
assisted his mentor Igor Savchenko on Taras Shevchenko (1951) and then
remade with Yakov Brazelian his graduation short as a feature-length
children’s film titled Andriesh (1954). A Moldavian Fairy Tale appears
to be lost, although Parajanov claimed to have kept a copy at his home
in Tbilisi. Three documentary films followed: Dumka (1959), about a
choral group and made for the anniversary of the 1917 Revolution;
Natalya Ushviy (1960), a portrait of a prominent Ukrainian stage and
screen actress, and Golden Hands (1960), about folk art and co-directed
Oleksiy Pankratov and Alexandr Nikolayenko. All three documentaries can
be found in the Kiev film archive. His next three feature films at the
Dovzhenko Studios -The First Lad (1959), Ukrainian Rhapsody (1961), and
The Flower on the Stone (1962) - generally followed the prescribed
principles of Socialist Realism, yet each did contain scenes that went
against the grain.
Parajanov’s
ninth film in Kiev, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1964), caused an
uproar by smashing to bits the principles of Socialist Realism in Soviet
cinema. Although awarded at several international film festivals, it was
given only limited release in the Soviet Union. In trouble with the
authorities for also protesting the arrest of Ukrainian poets and
intellectuals, Parajanov accepted an offer from Yerevan to make a
documentary on
Hakop Hovnatanian (1965), an Armenian portrait painter who
had lived and worked in Tbilisi. Portraits by Ovnatanian were later
incorporated into scenes in Kiev Frescoes (1966), a production
interrupted at the Dovzhenko Studios after a few weeks of shooting. Only
fragments of Akop Ovnatanian and Kiev Frescoes remain today. The same
fate befell Sayat Nova (1966), shot under primitive conditions in
Armenia. When the director’s cut was confiscated, Sergei Yutkevich cut
20 minutes out of the original in an effort to save the film and
re-edited the remainder into The Color of the Pomegranate (1969) for
limited Moscow release. “My masterpiece no longer exists,” lamented
Parajanov shortly before his death - although an attempt has recently
been made in Armenia to reconstruct the original version.
All further
attempts to make a film proved in vain. After years of intrigue and
suspicion, Parajanov was arrested in Kiev on 17 December 1973 and, after
a court hearing, sentenced on 25 April 1974 to five years imprisonment
at the Dniepropetrovsk camp for hardened criminals. The charges were
given as: “business with art objects,” “leaning towards homosexuality,”
“incitement to suicide,” and “blackmarketing.” In 1978, as the result of
world-wide protests and petitions made by friends and artists, he was
released and allowed to return to his family home in Tbilisi, but not
permitted to find work in a film studio. On 11 February 1982, he was
arrested again by the KGB, “for bribing a public official” to help a
nephew gain entrance to the university, and detained in the
Voroshilovgrad prison until November 1982.
After 15 years
on a blacklist, Parajanov received the support of Eduard Shevardnadze,
First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, to make the feature The
Legend of Suram Fortress (1985), co-directed by actor Dodo Abakhidze,
and the documentary Arabesques on the Theme Pirosmani (1986) at the
Gruziafilm Studio in Tbilisi. His last film, Ashik Kerib (1988), a
Georgian-Armenian-Azerbaijan co-production, has received limited release
in these countries. On 4 June 1989, he began shooting the first scenes
from his autobiographical film, Confession, at his family home in
Tbilisi. Three days later, he was taken to a hospital with respiratory
problems. An operation for lung cancer in Moscow followed, then
radiation treatments in Paris. Sergei Parajanov died on 20 July 1990 at
the age of 66 in Yerevan, where he is buried.
*****
Sergei Parajanov -
Sergo Paradjanov - Sarkis Paradjanian
1924-1990
Films:
1951 A Moldavian
Fairy Tale (short), student diploma film (lost)
1954 Andriesh
(feature), codirected by Yakov Brazelian
1958 The First Lad
(feature)
1959 Dumka, or The
“Dumka” State Academic Chorus (documentary)
1960 Natalya Uzhviy
(documentary)
1960 Golden Hands
(documentary), codirected by Oleksiy Pankratov and Alexandr Nikolayenko
1961 Ukrainian
Rhapsody (feature)
1962 The Flower on the
Stone (feature)
1964 Shadows of Our
Forgotten Ancestors (feature)(1965/86, banned)
1966 Kiev Frescoes
(feature, uncompleted, fragment)
1968 Akop
Ovnatanian (documentary)
1969 Sayat Nova The
Color of the Pomegranate (feature) (1969/86, banned)
1971 The Color of the
Pomegranate (feature), (1971/86, banned) reedited version of Sayat Nova
by Sergei Yutkevich under new title
1984 The Legend of Suram Fortress (feature)
1985 Arabesques on
the Theme of Pirosmani (documentary)
1988 Ashik Kerib
(feature)
1989 Confession
(feature, uncompleted, original camera negative)
only survives in the documentary film "Parajanov: The Last Spring"
(1992)
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